287. Family Travel Day Tips and Fort Langley, B.C.

this week our favorite town in Canada Fort Langley plus some travel day tips for long drive days with the family this is RV miles this summer L.L.Bean wants to help you feel great out there with gear tips and advice for heading outdoors and exploring all the possibilities of the Season here's a game-changing tip for the beach bring a fitted sheet as nice as a nap in the sun is the sheet isn't for making up the bed it's a smart way to keep sand off your beach towels since the corners of a fitted sheet naturally lift all you need to do is add weighted objects To Each corner and you'll have a Nifty pocket of space you can hang out in sand free for more fun ideas easy how to's and inspiring stories visit llbean.com guide foreign welcome to episode number 287 of RV miles I'm Jason and I'm Abby and we are two rvers who have been crisscrossing North America on one Epic road trip since 2016 with our three kids Jack Ethan and Henry here at RV miles we talk all things RV and Outdoors from industry news to travel destinations our national parks and so much more we are coming to you from uh where are we we are on our way back we are we are on our way back to the lower 48 we've we've left Alaska and we are back in the Yukon Territory we are at destruction Bay I remembered it took me there you go like T's out there so I can remember we're destruction Bay does it feel like though you are still on Highway one being jostled up and down bouncing all around yeah it's kind of one of those things where like you get off a roller coaster or a boat and you still feel it yeah that's we're still feeling it the stretch of highway that we have been on or we were on yesterday and I think we will continue to encounter today was quite something I'm going to talk about it in my black tank but uh people were not kidding when they asked us if we had been on this stretch of highway one yet and what we thought of it because whoa this road is real rough but it's okay we're glad to be making our way back to Illinois and we are in a stunning Campground today that we just stumbled upon as we happen to miss our turn off for the spot we were going to Boondock at yeah Canada at least along the way up to Alaska has lots of campgrounds that are first come first serve 20 Canadian a night by the roadside uh no hookups uh but still like not right next to the road so it's pretty and separated and uh usually free firewood so yeah absolutely great place to stop for the night to try and just get our legs underneath us before we continue on today to White Horse and we are in a stretch here where we are uh we're knocking out some really long travel days longer than we normally do we normally try to keep it to around 200 miles or less we're generally trying to hit 300 or more right now and uh and that is something that normally has been difficult for our kids but they've been Troopers because they know that they're headed home and excited to see the grandparents and everything but yeah we we have learned a lot about traveling uh long distances with our kids so at the beginning of the podcast here we wanted to share a little a little bit a few tips on long travel days yes yeah so over the year the year seven years as being full-time rvers these travel day tips with kids have really changed we've gone from having in the beginning a three six and nine year old to now having a 10 13 and 16 year old so you can imagine that interests and the way we kind of structure our travel days has completely changed so this is kind of how our day goes now that we're traveling with older kids we're traveling with teens and one of the first things that we really try to be mindful of I think one of the biggest things that this can go all across the board for any aged kid though is that every time we stop on these long travel days and we do stop quite a bit either be it for bathrooms or for fuel or it's time to stop for lunch everybody gets out everybody has to get out of the truck even if we're just stopped for five minutes because Mom has to pee again everybody gets out takes a walk just walk it you don't have to do anything else even if you just walk a straight line back and forth in front of the RV but just walk and move your body because sitting for a really long time even though you're not doing anything is actually incredibly exhausting the roads are exhausting I mean it we were bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce up in different ways and yeah and your muscles are actually working yeah and you're sore so we really make sure that everybody gets out and even if they don't want to or they don't have to pee or whatever you need to get out you need to move so that's the biggest we do try to say as much as possible use the bathroom please so that we don't have additional bathroom stops that we shouldn't have but it's worth making those bathroom stops even if they're only need to be a short couple minutes it's worth just extending them a little bit and getting that little extra time to move your body around and having that little bit of a break I completely agree I know that you know we're this will be day three now of I think we've covered already about 600 miles yesterday and the day before and I'm sore I've been trying to make sure that every night before I go to bed I'm doing 10 to 15 last night I did a half an hour of yoga just because I need to move my muscles so if I'm feeling it in my 44 year old body I know that the kids are filling it I know you're feeling it too so move uh the next thing that we have really tried to be mindful of and we have tried to give our kids the responsibility of this and it has bit them in the butt a few times times responsibility wise is if you are driving through a long stretch where there will be no service like our kids have no service on their phones when we are in Canada the plan that we have the right the Verizon Family Plan only gives them phone access cellular access when we're in the states and we have Services don't worry about that but I'm sorry I pay for it I get service but it's but it's few and far between oh for sure driving through these very remote areas of Canada we should almost for for I'd say 90 of the way there is no cell service at all and we have serious satellite radio it hasn't worked it hasn't worked this far north yeah and it's a little stressful because Bears preseason starts on Saturday and we'd really like to be able to listen to the game well hopefully we'll be South enough that it'll work I hope so I am doing everything I can not to have to buy that NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube but they did message me again today and we're like we'll give you fifty dollars off but yeah but it's no refunds it's so expensive it's 50 off if you join you also saw YouTube premium so you're also paying 70 bucks a month or more for for YouTube TV well I think Grant told us that Sunday Ticket on YouTube is 400. I think it shook out to being like 80 bucks a month which is crazy and yet I'm about to draft for Fantasy Football so I kind of need access to all of these games and don't blame YouTube for that they wanted a lower price oh I 100 the NFL was like no it's going to cost 400. oh it's all Roger Goodell I know I see him eventually the commissioner of the NFL will be Ethan Everson so I think is making sure the kids have downloaded things onto their devices if they have devices devices are they are great for travel days I know you do have to be careful though because they can't cause motion sickness yes and I know we all have lots of opinions on devices and kids but our kids have them and we 100 percent use them on a travel day uh but yeah you you need the kids have to be responsible for downloading their own stuff and if they don't and where you know it seems to be five minutes before we're leaving everyone's in a Mad Dash because we're like we're about to take starlink town and then all of a sudden everyone's like oh oh no my favorite episode of Ninjago didn't download I gotta you know but there have been a lot of issues where like with some of these streaming services you can download an episode of something but it wants you to have an internet connection to make sure that you legally have access to that looking at you Disney in order to play it so they're only thinking of the download function as a data saving thing so that you're you're not using your cellular data you can download stuff when you're at home on your Wi-Fi some of them allow you to play them whenever but for that reason audio is King I don't know that is motion sickness thing so if the kids can listen to audio books or you as a family can listen to audiobooks or podcasts hint RV miles podcast America's national parks go back and listen to All of C America I mean there's we have so many options for the family to listen to something while they're on the road Abby and I uh other than when we're listening to music and again make sure you have your music downloaded to Spotify or apple music whatever you you use but Abby and I spend most of the time listening to podcasts and we try to make sure we have some podcasts in there or audiobooks that the kids will also be interested in so sometimes we can have at least three or four of us listening to something yeah so really downloading is key audio is preferred uh you know we've talked a lot about uh in the past podcasts that we listen to uh for audio books we do go through both an audible subscription which we have and we also have a Scribd subscription as well and I'll link to both of those if you're interested in checking them out because audible's done this thing now where they finally have adjusted their plans to be a little bit more I think for us a little bit more friendly if before in the past it was just that flat fee one a month for fifteen dollars and now they've got a few other options in there where you can get one credit for two months and you know it's not as expensive I think personally as Audible has always been in the past but audio is King which is what's worked really well for us I think on the audio front too is is books and stories that are uh shorter than novel length you know we we listened to a lot of the Nancy Drew Mysteries which are book length but they're kid book length and shorter and that's been a lot of fun we've listened to a lot of the Agatha Christie hercuoparo series uh and those are uh sort of short audio stories well we've done them not as the audiobooks for the actual book we've done the BBC so BBC Radio does an entire collection of uh Classics um that be Jane Austen the brontes Agatha Christie uh Dickens like I mean if it's a classic English literature they've turned it into a radio drama full cast with sound effects and music it's really beautiful so it might be two hours long instead of 16 hours long or 45 minutes or you know it's really digestible because you can you know the key to a long travel date is variety so you know our kids also have a switch and nintend window switch now this is putting them in front of a screen again but you know if you have a kid that's not really prone to motion sickness a Nintendo switch some sort of handheld device like that can be great on a travel day the kids will bring the iPad and they will do a lot of drawing and I think procreate they do a lot of stuff in procreate sometimes we let them bring their computers and Ethan will play Sims or something like that where but again that has to be really limited because of motion sickness and also because of the roads that we're on right now it's really difficult to try and draw or play you know switch plays aldar something when you're just constantly going our kids uh when you see them on our posts on Instagram and and whatever they're very often wearing headphones and lots of people ask us about that kids always have headphones often have bluetooth headphones on and that's just it's because they are just really into audio books and that is great for travel days but also it's just sort of great for living small like it's kind of a way to get away from everybody in this small tiny space which we found something interesting oh yeah yesterday but I will I think we're going to talk about that in our tanks to it a little bit but I would also caution anyone who uh negatively looks at kids who are wearing headphones because also a lot of kids wear headphones because of sensory like it's just a loud environment uh be that outside or wherever they are kids have some audio sensory issues and wearing those headphones kind of dampens that down a little bit and makes loud spaces makes places that they can go with their family a little bit more accessible for all the family members so just bear that in mind for those who are about to go and really try to slap a parent on the hand and because their kids are wearing you know headphones whenever they see them it could be for way more than just and an audiobook which in in some cases for our kids it is so just a just a little food for thought there um let's move away though from devices and audio and let's talk about the big thing which is the minute you get in the truck what is the what is the one thing outside once everyone's done fighting with each other because they're all sitting next to each other now so now it's time to fight and literally the minute our kids get in the truck the minute it's like they all have to just Spar don't have to be done whatever it is I I cannot sometimes I really miss the Chrysler Town and Country because of the separation of space but once they're done sparring what is the one thing that Henry says to us that's not just Henry but it's amazing but it's only it's mainly he's hungry he's always hungry I'm hungry it does not matter if we fed that child five hours 50 minutes five minutes or five seconds before we get into the truck he's like Pavlov's dog he is hungry so we have come up with and this is not we didn't make this up I I'm sure I got this from somebody else it's the snack bag it's a and it's not it's not a little bag it's a big reusable grocery bag from natural grocers that is filled with food and it sits in between Jason and I on the little console area of the truck and at this point because I've gotten I'm tired of people asking me what we have at this point when they say I'm hungry the bag just goes back and look just go through it get whatever you want out of it if you see three of something you only get to have one because that means I brought one for each of you so don't be taking your brother's fruit snacks because I don't want to hear about that in like two hours it gets rid of the you know do you want this do you want this do you want this do you want this times three because there's three kids which gets exhausting and um and you can even take this a step further I know Jamie and Clay make do they have the same issue with with Jojo and they have her pack her own snack bag on a travel day well they make her literally she just has her own snacks and I know sometimes they do it for her but like they have she has her own snacks and and they're nobody else's they are given to her at the start she could eat them whenever she wants if she eats them all at the start of the trip but that's it there's no more but that can be and we've done a version of that in the past with some like individual containers but for the most part our kids will pretty much eat all the same things so we just throw it all into the snack bag and this is where Costco has been clutch for us on this trip because I will go into Costco and I will just be like to all of the all the snacks yeah into the cart I sometimes people wonder how we can have a Costco membership and how it's useful to us living in a trailer this small on the road and it's really the snacks and teenagers and one uh that is that eats as much as the other two combine he has three holes of pasta last night where his brothers had one big bull each that that little man came back for three big bowls and then again it's bedtime so naturally he's hungry and he was still hungry at bedtime so we do a lot of snacks everybody gets their own water bottle everyone's got water everyone's got snacks that's your stuff for the whole Drive we do on Long Drive days we do stop for lunch though we don't pack lunch and then and unless it's a super long day like if we're trying to do five or 600 700 miles then yeah we're gonna pack lunch and we're gonna try not to stop but we stopped for lunch uh we try to stop for about an hour a lot of times we'll stop uh we'll get starlink out we'll have lunch Jason and I will work for a while yeah it's less about uh let's make lunch happen as fast as possible so we can get going we slow down it's everybody needs a break yeah let's let's take an hour have lunch let people rest if they want to lay in their bed a little bit they want to run around outside uh if you want to watch a quick TV show or something it's just like a break from everybody I think even though we're all doing our own thing in the truck we're all still together and I think you just sometimes need to go off to your own space read a book like whatever but you know if we know that we're going to do that then and we know we have a long day we do try to get started as early as possible so that we can get going that we can build in this time to stop you know yesterday's travel day was we got going really early in the morning because we knew that two of the three of the kids had out School classes so we knew that we needed to stop and we knew that we needed to stop because you needed to write and you needed to film the news video so we stopped in the afternoon for about four hours and set up starlink and were in this rest area and did lunch and worked and recorded and then got back on the road and continued into until about eight o'clock at night so it does help that it's summer and that we are in the land of the Midnight Sun yeah this kind of stuff gets real hard when it's rainy yes um when when you don't want to be outside without a coat and boots on and stuff like that if it's snowy even worse all that sort of stuff that's when you just don't want to be traveling long travel days so it is helping that we're you know here with uh you know 15 16 17 18 22 hours of daylight I suppose those things are a benefit if you have a motor home and you don't have to like walk outside at all you just yeah I mean when we had fussy that was always a big benefit a busy is I would get up like we could make lunch we could use the restroom like we were able to be a little bit more on the Go Mobile and finally setting realistic expectations is really important at our house it's really important too that our kids know what the goal is for the day or for the week where we're going we have kids that really are not big fans of unexpected changes so we really do try to make sure that everyone understands okay today is a long drive day we're leaving at noon we're going to be stopping we're going to attempt to stop around this time then we're gonna drive on if we want to go further like we did the other day you know we say hey we we want to go another 60 miles like we want to we want to get past this stop and we want to go to this rest area instead and we talk about that and we let the kids know because you know what will send everyone into a meltdown especially if you have something like Garmin which is like big on the dashboard that shows like how many miles are left and what time you're supposed to arrive if everyone can see that and that's the expectation and that's the goal we're all working for and then Mom and Dad just flip the whole script and say nope that's not what we're doing anymore we're going further that can be fine but for you know for our kids they really appreciate knowing what is happening knowing what's happening with their lives that day like what you know Mom and Dad are making these decisions but Jack Ethan and Henry need to have a voice in those decisions and understand those decisions and know why we're doing these things nobody really wanted to go that extra 60 miles but we knew what was coming the next day we knew that we were going to need to stop for a long period of time and we also remind ourselves that every mile we drive gets us one mile closer to home so there is that idea now where everyone is tucking in and saying okay this is miserable it's rough but we can do this and and I think talking about it you know I'll add this on this will be a bonus I guess like thought is that we we wanted to do that extra 60 miles that was really tough and people were feeling really stressed about it but we started you because they were just so bored and so we talked about hey this is going to be our life for like the next two to three weeks yeah we started this conversation weeks ago too right and when we made the decision to get home faster yeah because we we made that decision as a family we all sat down and talked about it we all agreed that that was in the best interest of you know for Henry for us for everything that we needed to go take care of um but I said hey I can offer suggestions of things that you can do that go beyond just the you know your your fallback things that you do on a travel day but this you guys really need to start you know taking a little ownership of this and like what is something what can we do on a travel day to break it up right like what do you get do you have things you guys want to listen to or you know do we want to like I suggested to like hey what if everyone becomes DJ for like half an hour or something like uh drop some music into a playlist we'll create a family road trip playlist and and why doesn't someone become DJ for half an hour and we'll listen to the music you like to listen to and you know just things that not only I think get them with their headphones off and out of a solo experience but brings them into the family experience because I know that you know that last 60 miles ended up being I think our best 60 miles of that whole day because for you and I started talking um about things that we wanted to do when we get back to the Quad Cities and then the kids just started talking everyone kind of got out of their individual space and spent that last like hour and a half just chatting and chatting away and interacting and I think that you know when you try to offer some variety a little bit things unexpected things little treats whatever then that kind of helps make the day uh and the drive go a little faster we love to know what some of your tips are if you're watching on YouTube you can leave them in the comments there or leave them in the Facebook group we love to hear from you uh that's it for our conversation on Family Travel let's take a break and we're going to come back and talk about Fort Langley BC which was just a 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for you or not gas running low looking for a bite to eat or a bathroom break Park Wolf's got you covered it keeps track of the nearest gas station restrooms food and pullover areas and the best part it works without an internet connection and if you're a wildlife Enthusiast you'll love Park Wolf's Wildlife maps and siding notifications so before you set off on your next national park Adventure download the park wolf app for your iPhone from the App Store it's your ultimate guide to National Parks we're back and we're here to talk about Fort Langley BC which is it's outside of the town of Langley which is a larger town it's this cute little historic town with a beautiful quaint like perfect Main Street just outside of Vancouver not far from Vancouver at all and the intention here uh was for us to cross the border from Bellingham Washington uh and stay here at Fort Langley and that that's a very short travel day I think it was maybe 45 minutes from the border if that and the intention here was to visit Vancouver from Fort Langley and we just fell in love with this town so much that we never went into Vancouver never left no shade to vanity we were also we talked about those of the past we were also still a little reeling and overwhelmed from our experience in Seattle which was which was fun and wonderful but it was exhausting I think between there were three things at play here there was Seattle which had been a big day Victoria which had been a big day in San Francisco which had been big days and big cities and you know there's a lot that goes into that and work and school and and to get somewhere where you can walk to everything you just think why would I leave blacksmith bakery that I it's just right down when I can get coffee there every morning when it's right down the street from my Campground there's no McDonald's there's no generic restaurants you will not everything is Boutique and wonderful you will not find a Panera here this is not the villages this is Affordable no at all it's not at all but it is a wonderful little town it is on a river uh and then on on the river is an island um I think it's called Bray island or something like that yeah uh and on the island good podcasters would have looked that up Jason mavi are exhausted very confusing because it has a couple names I think it's also called McMillan Island somebody's going to chime in yeah someone will correct us but on this little island there's actually a First Nations reservation there but then but then there's also this Campground which is a regional park so it's a government-run campground called wait for it Fort camping that's such a generic name but it's actually a really wonderful Campground uh that has pretty typical State Parky type sites they're kind of close together but it's a very sort of communal fun atmosphere yeah I'd say there was lots of like birthday party type stuff going on people visiting probably getting out of Vancouver to come visit oh it was summer a lot of a lot of locals not a lot of Americans heading up to Alaska stopping here which I think was really cool because a lot of the Canadians were like oh really this is the way you came oh yeah when you really stopped here yeah and and uh we just found it so charming and like Abby said from this Campground you could walk right into town we walked we biked uh it was great for Jack because one of the things that Jack has really been craving is the ability to you know get on his bike or walk somewhere you put his backpack on with his computer and everything and then go to a coffee shop and and work on his music or work on his scripts but just go somewhere you know that's not the campground where he can just be I think immersed in the hustle and bustle of what's going on around him but this autonomy that's independence I'm wanting to just get out yeah make decisions on his own like get you know buy stuff on his own and all that sort of stuff yeah and this is this this whole week and I think that he has said that this was one of his favorite weeks of Baja to Alaska if not his favorite because of the freedom that he had the independence he had to go off and explore the town on his own on his bike or just even to walk so I think in that just for that alone that's why you know I really loved this area now you know I've I wrote about it in a past Road science newsletter that I've stopped pretending like I love cooking around a campfire and I love cooking at the campground I do not I love going and eating food at a restaurant like especially a local restaurant and the food scene in Fort Langley was ma it was so good I saw an article the other day I didn't read it but the headline was is camping trips are not vacations for mothers and with the idea being that you know if if the mother of the family is the one that does the primary amount of cooking three meals a day probably more if multiple people aren't eating the same thing I mean you could say that and I hope you could actually say that that camping trips are not vacations for parents yeah that would be I think that would be a better headline I I guess the humor of it this was a humorous article and they absolutely can be but there is there is an element of when you go on vacation to hotels and stuff and you go to restaurants there's that level somebody has to do that work of making meals right and it's it's not me and so maybe that is why I enjoy it but at the same time we have I I think part of why Fort Langley worked so well for us and why we enjoyed it was because um we could often go out to dinner just the two weeks we're at an age now where we can do that and we were close enough we try not to go more than like 15 minutes away yeah and this was a place where we could do that leaving the kids behind and still be able to get back to them yeah it's got to be that we can quickly get back to them everybody has to have service yeah and I have to be able to get a hold of everyone and so you know a lot of times we'd be like oh you know eat your dinner bye yes but we would if we would go off when they get to be that age it doesn't need to be the whole family goes out for dinner and twice as much because actually our kids don't really like they love going out they don't usually want most of the food that's at a restaurant so they just want Red Robin they actually eat better at home so we make them a meal at home and then we go out and have a nice dinner listen frankly they've all aged out of kids eat free yeah so or or kids meals in general like I mean my gosh Henry Henry is our 10 year old is like so I'm gonna need you to order me like a pizza and I'm gonna need a side of chicken tenders and I'm like no you're not I'm not spending it's expensive now like I'm not spending 30 dollars on you son at dinner I'm like pick a meal eat all of it and if you are still hungry then we got to eat especially here in Alaska not here in Alaska I mean we're not in Alaska anymore but especially in Alaska where so many of the places the kids meals I guess this is true for any sort of like vacation type area the kids meals are now pushing like 15 oh my gosh that Seward Brewery and I actually think you have it on for us to talk about what makes a good brewery as part of our detour which is the after the show podcast we do for the mile marker members you can learn more about that at rvmiles.com mile markers but that Brewery a kids salad y'all was 16 there's this weird thing happening with breweries now that they've they've kind of figured out us gen xers all have kids and Millennials we've all got kids and they're like oh I know how we get all y'all in here uh we're gonna offer kids meals now but we're also anyway we'll talk about it in DeTour it's fine uh so we we anyway what we spent most of the week here not at the campground but walking into town and visiting all the really really cute quaint Shops and and uh eating at several restaurants and visiting a couple different breweries and and places like that yeah and a few places we want to highlight is Wendell's bookstore and Cafe we've really enjoyed the bookstore the cafe was nice too actually Jack really liked going up a lot this is where Jack hung out uh Wendell's was great I really want to throw it out there for Blacksmith bakery that was our go-to coffee bake shop every morning Jason and I would take a walk it was such a nice way to start the day just even to get a cup of coffee this was like if you watched like the Great British baking show and like want all the things that they make on that show you want all the stuff that they make in the technicals yeah which is really what we all want Victoria sponge doesn't want a Victorious cases of that stuff is really what it is sausage rolls uh now you can see why Abby was there like every single day uh so any of the restaurants they've there's a winery there's a brewery there's plenty of variety in regards to Styles and Cuisines absolutely try them all other things that you can do there if you're not into food scenes and you do want to eat at the campground is you can take the fort to Fort Trail we did that as with our bikes you can walk that it's really enjoyable there is a historical a fort there that you can visit we didn't actually visit it but there is like a that you can actually go to the Fort the fort was built by the Hudson Bay Company and uh and and there were a couple Forts and so this trail goes between the two of them but only the one still stands and it is right in Fort Langley yeah and that is actually part of parks Canada so you can go check that out then you can do the fort to Fort Trail when you're on the island at the campground there's the island Trail that's really nice to walk in the mornings uh if you go over to the uh National Railway Station museum which is just as you come over the bridge from the island and you're gonna see the uh little train car train cars over on the side you can go over there go in of course I had to go in and and talk to the people that work there and find out like because they're locals and always talk to locals locals are the one who gave us all the actual don't go they're the ones that turned me onto blacksmith Bakery don't go to the bakery on the main strip go over to blacksmith that's where you want to go um they also gave me a walking tour and I've I've discussed how much I love a good walking tour I took the brochure one evening and walked around Fort Langley and went to all of the stops that were on the brochure read about them went over and enjoyed a beer at the brewery by myself afterwards read a book it was just really lovely I think Fort Langley really encourages you to slow down a little bit too like the vibe is just real chill and community and really just a it's a lovely lovely place to spend a week this is a place where I would like I think and we kind of did a lot of this sort of thing where if you're going to have a 9 out like go to One restaurant and have a drink and an appetizer oh yeah and go to another one and have your eyes there's like 14 different ice cream places on this trip it's a restaurant crawl dessert crawl Bar Crawl whatever you want to however you want to crawl around Fort Langley you could do a coffee crawl we had great poutine at the Trading Post there's uh there's just lots of yeah sort of unique little meals appetizers and stuff like that a lot of these restaurants that just we really enjoyed in like crafty fun cocktails that sort of stuff and there's plenty of little Boutique shops so this was a nice uh relaxing way to start our time in Canada and time in British Columbia and if you find yourself over in that area and you're in Washington we really really cannot recommend enough just jump in the border and go in 45 minutes into British Columbia and spending some time in Fort Langley we don't think you will regret it it's a wonderful small town that's got some great things going for it all right let's take a break and when we come back we'll check the level of our tanks be right back more in a moment but first this video is sponsored by rvmattress.com by Brooklyn betting did you know that the mattresses that come with your RV are usually just a placeholder most RV manufacturers never intended that you actually sleep on it we've been using mattresses from Brooklyn Bedding in our last two RVs and we couldn't be happier you can choose your thickness and all sorts of different odd RV mattress sizes that customization was essential for clearing the bedroom slide in our fifth wheel and for the kids bunks in the new travel trailer we're sleeping great on real mattresses from a real mattress company in our RV rvmattress.com offers a 120 night sleep trial along with a 10-year warranty plus their products are entirely toxin free and simple to ship and set up we even had them shipped to campgrounds and you just unroll them and let them expand the RV Miles Community gets 25 off when you visit RV Max dot com slash RV miles and use the promo code RV miles that's rvmattress.com RV miles with promo code RV miles for 25 off our thanks to rvmattress.com for supporting this Channel and to you for supporting our sponsors welcome back and it is time to check the level of our tanks sponsored by our friends over at Matt's RV reviews liquefied RV toilet treatment which you can find in our Amazon store at amazon.com shop RV miles along with a host of other products that we recommend to keep your RV life going Jay what is in your black tank this week uh there is a I I don't I don't want to get too deep into it but there there was a pretty terrible accident in Pennsylvania this past weekend in involving a blown tire on on a motorhome and so this is just a this is just a quick reminder to check your tires keep your tires maintained make sure you know how to check the date code it's really easy Google how to read the date code on your tires and make sure you've changed your tires if they are older than four or five years it they they need to be replaced um we we talk about Tire safety on travel trailers a lot this happens to be a motor home and it seems like it was the Steer tires be really careful about those Steer tires on a motorhome the front tires you don't ever want to put used tires there I know they can get really expensive I mean motorhome tires for a big Class A motorhome they can be over a thousand dollars a piece you can get more affordable ones it's better to have more affordable ones that are newer than have really expensive ones and to use them longer than their you know do life but your life is worth more than a thousand dollars so please uh please put appropriate tires on your motorhome your travel trailer I mean the issue with the steer tires is if if the if the steer tires the ones on the front axle on a motorhome if one of those blows then you can't steer right so you that you can get out of control if if one of the rear tires blows you're usually in a much better situation so uh you know rotating tires stuff like that you can even if you can't afford to replace all your tires just replace the front ones there's there's things like that that you can do as well but just everybody please keep up on your tire safety it's it's really important double check your tread life double check that you're keeping the proper inflation um under flight under inflating is is the biggest cause of blowouts out there uh and make sure that there's you're not seeing any cracks or bubbles or anything weird on your tires at all get them checked out by a professional yeah and you know this is probably in the longest that I can remember um when and you know accidents do happen but I think this is the biggest loss of life yeah from a single RV accident that five people yeah yeah it was pretty significant yeah so tires are they're they're no joke like they they can do some pretty serious damage if they're not uh properly cared for so uh you and the people around you and in your vehicle are all worth um getting those tires checked out all right what is in your fresh tank this week uh Jack and I and our friend Grant Jenny and Grant were with us in Seward and Anchorage and uh you would have seen Grant he joined us on our live uh we had our recent live for mile marker members it's the first Monday of every month it was the first time in all of our Lives ever I think that we've had an official guest the whole time and he brought he brought such an energy in uh such a I've known grant for a very very long time we'll get back to what you're about to talk about in a second but I just want to say I've known grant for a long time it is not easy to sit down in front of a camera and put complete sentences together that don't include us and likes and stuttering we know darn good and well how hard that is I'll be danged if that man just didn't sit down natural he was natural and I was like how can we get him in the RV miles from network of podcasts because it would be very easy to edit him so just got my brain turn and I know he's gonna hear this it was a lot of fun but uh we uh the three of us went to go see Oppenheimer in Anchorage at the IMAX Anchorage Alaska has an IMAX one IMAX and holy cow Oppenheimer is a fantastic movie we were all kind of speechless coming out of it I don't think we had a whole lot to say Obviously it deals with a you know one of the biggest if not the biggest event in human history when I asked Jason uh I called him to find out where we were all meeting and I said how was the movie and for anyone that's listened to a past episode you'll know Jason just went good good but I was like okay I was speechless for a different reason this time it's three hours uh that three hours is is packed in all necessary and it was um you know if you're worried about seeing a downer movie uh it actually didn't feel like that either I mean you do you do have to Grapple with nuclear war uh yeah you have to really grapple with the consequences so it is it is a downer movie but it's sort of active and it's an active really interesting seeing how you know the process of getting to the development of of the bomb and so it that that's um it's really engaging it was it's a weird it's weird to figure out ways to describe this well it was just really really good sorry I don't mean to keep interrupting you I just I know I just want to say something I'm sorry I what I wanted to say was because I didn't want us to lose the thought was that you said that you were speechless but you were speechless and yet at the same time you went home and within a couple days you wrote the most recent episode of America's national parks podcast which is about the Manhattan Project and the three main secret cities that were a part of the Manhattan Project which is what Oppenheimer is based on it was really an important piece of Cinema and um yeah you wanted to learn it's a well-crafted film in general too and I think it was it's rated R it's not something that you know anybody younger than Jack I would have taken to oh my gosh could I I have to tell this story then so Jack told the story of Jason and Jack told the story at lunch afterwards that so there's an adult moment in the movie and Jack is sitting there with his dad on one side and his uncle on the other side and the adult moment begins Jack he's so great he leans over to Jason and he puts his hand over Jason's eyes so that Jason can't watch it to Shield him and then he leans over to his uncle does the same thing so Jack is sitting there covering Jason and Grant's eyes so that they can't watch the adult moment it was funny and that was his way of breaking what I'm sure was a moment of oh of course no if they there was it he didn't miss a beat oh he never does you know what he's so cool about stuff like that because he's like whatever it's just something it's just part of life so he's pretty cool about stuff like that uh all right what's your black tank this week so so my black tank well first off before I get into the black tank because I'm going to talk about bexie here we learned something really interesting about bexie uh thanks to someone who left a comment on YouTube asking us a question about the Ibex but our Ibex 20 BHS and they made a comment that the 2023s are being listed as 22 feet 11 inches long so that got us thinking because uh we have again been believing we were in a 25 foot travel trailer and we went on the website we looked and we're like oh it is saying 22 11. okay so we're laying there and we're kind of doing just like real general math like okay the queen size bed is this long and uh the kids bunks are that long and the dinette is is the song and we're kind of like hey that's that's like roughly around 19 and a half 20. 21 I think it was like we came up with it being about 21 feet yeah and then we looked at the door sticker and what do you know 22-11 23 feet all this time thinking we were at 25 feet I was like we are rock stars okay we have been with five people for six months in a 23 foot travel trailer uh we're also very classic Jason and Abby being like 25 feet this is what we're in and literally the sticker on the door is like you're in a 22 11. so we learned that little new piece about baxi we still love Betsy I'm like we are even more hardcore than it makes all the difference this two feet bexie had a rough go yesterday down the Alaska highway but did great like that again independent suspension clutch refrigerator hard time real hard time at some point and we were let me just say we were going between toke and destruction Bay I was driving and we were not going fast I was I was not going fast I was I was riding those Frost heaves at the at the at a slow good speed I'm hitting those washboards a couple of times we got caught a little bit you get on those washboards and the the big dips are hidden and you try to catch them going I would like to say I was doing I did really well yesterday you did okay thank you I needed validation come into the rig and we're getting set up I come into the rig fridge doors closed by the way fridge is closed and it's you know it's a it's one that has like the snap latch built in on the fridge so I'm about to start dinner and I open up the pantry and I happen to just kind of glance down at the floor and I'm like why is this three pack of Costco hamburger meat what why is that I'm like why is that why is my prosciutto on the why is the ranch on the ground what what is this goop everywhere the fridge at some point so I opened the fridge to see like and catch the eggs in my hand as they start to fall out some point during the drive we hit something so hard fridge popped open or the perhaps the fridge wasn't fully latched because this happened after lunch so we'd been stopped for four hours we got back on so perhaps the fridge wasn't fully latched what had happened was one of my favorite sauces it's called and sauce that's the name of it um I had a three pack of it you can buy at Costco and we hadn't opened it yet it fell out the container hit probably the corner I'm guessing of the bottom of the fridge busted the bottom part of the container a big chunk of the plastic taken out and that full thing of sauce then proceeded to just cover everything and we keep we have a bunch of food on the floor right now because we just done a Costco run so like all those snacks and containers are like sitting there underneath the fridge on the on the floor because we live in 22 feet and we don't have space for it I get to say 22 feet now by the way we live in 20. we live in 23 feet um so it was thank goodness that stuff was there because I think it actually broke the fall a little bit on some things and especially if the eggs had fallen out it might have saved the eggs um it was it was such a mess it was such a mess and it was like 8 30 9 o'clock there with like one time in the bus uh spaghetti jar I would argue that this no I think the spaghetti sauce was worse because the spaghetti sauce just went like little bits of spaghetti sauce everywhere I think what happens in RV fridges I I think probably what happened to Nars is we didn't actually latch it but what often happens it's not the door that swings open it's stuff slamming into the door that makes the door open yeah I'm pretty sure that that's and they do sell like uh sort of like uh retention rods they're like the shower rods but little tiny ones that go into your fridge and hold your food back yes and that would probably be smart for roads like this well you know Jason we're not here to I think you can also use them in cabinets and stuff to hold other things back and we're here to impart wisdom after the fact not not prior we are we are reactive most of the time as opposed to proactive so yeah the Rosa rough up here roads are up prepare for that somebody told me today I wish I could tell you it's going to get better it's not this is not a stretch we've driven because we took the cassiar highway and that was better than this oh give me that all day long so we will see what today's drive to White Horse is like all right what's in your fresh tank my fresh tank this week goes actually to an RV miles listener I would like to thank Dee who we got to meet uh last week for the really kind gift of my most favorite uh creamer on the planet the caliphia's better half which is almond milk and coconut cream kind of to mimic a half and half Dairy and I had mentioned several podcasts ago that getting any kind of Amazon Locker was just kind of non-existent and that I really missed this creamer and Shiana whim because she lives up here near Anchorage had Amazon deliver it to her and she gifted it to me uh the like day before we were going to get back on the road and head home and I just you know I want her to know that really really meant a lot to me and I just want her to know how much I appreciate that and and how nice it has been on these long drive days to have that little bit of comfort in the mornings when I start my day so thank you very much Dee and what a pleasure it was to meet you and what a pleasure it was to meet so many other people in the Alaska area as well we feel just so fortunate to have had that time up there and to run into so many of you uh and to be able to talk to you that is a real gift for us because often we're just talking to this camera or talking to the mics and it was amazing how many people we ran into in Alaska more I've said this before more than anywhere else in I mean we we love seeing y'all in in any Campground that we're at but it has happened more in Alaska than anywhere else yeah and I really wanted encourage people to to never feel like you can't say hi to us so many of you mentioned I didn't want to bother you and I hope that you know that we don't consider you a bother at all we consider you a you know a vital part of a community that we really love and appreciate so don't ever not say hi to us please say hi to us we always love being able to talk to you and to meet you and it's one of the highlights of what we do because this can be really isolating every week to just sit down and I love Jason I love talking to you but it's so nice to be able to talk to those who also listen and and share that community so please say hi to us which is why you know we're so excited for homecoming in just a few months yeah and hey that's almost completely sold out I think we're down to about five campsites left so and we do anticipate that the event will sell out so if that's something that you're wanting to attend and you want to join us it's October 4th through 8th in Amana Iowa I would really encourage you to get your tickets and get your campsite booked now we will link to that in the show notes as well as the description on YouTube and if it does sell out we'll try to see if the campground can if we can open something up but uh yeah we don't know so but we are already putting in we're already in talks with them for dates for next year at the same location in Amana Iowa somewhere between uh middle to end of September and early October so for those of you who can't join us this year and have been asking we will be doing this again we will increase the amount of attendees that we can have but we are planning on it being around the same time again this year sorry Balloon Fiesta uh but it's just such a great time to be in Amana at that time of year there's a little less corn sweat all right that's it for this week's RV miles podcast yes it is and hey if you are enjoying the show and you would like to support RV miles there are two way can become a mile marker member we would love to welcome you to that Community as well we've got live streams and free subscriptions to rootless living and RV today and we've got the detour podcast we've got lots of ways to say thank you over there if you would like to share this podcast or head over to Apple podcast and leave a five-star review for RV miles that is a tremendous way as well to offer support here for what we do if you have questions for Jason and I come on over to the RV Miles Facebook group and ask us there we'd love to chat with you about this episode or anything else that we've talked about in the past but until then please stay well please stay safe and go check your tires please and keep logging those RV miles bye everybody bye

Channel: RV Miles Podcast

Views: 1,379

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Id: SklIXHk3AhM

Length: 59min 29sec (3569 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 13 2023